Networking - What it is and Why You Need to Know It?

Kojo Ben — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 16:03:57 +0000

What is Networking?

Networking can be understood in two main concepts: 1) the process of connecting or building relationships with people to exchange information and opportunities, and 2) the process of connecting computers to exchange data and resources. Both of these concepts sound very similar, even though one has to do with people and the other is concerned with computers or devices. This is because, in a network (be it person-to-person or computer-to-computer), there are two main actions we can't ignore: connection and exchange of information. Without these two actions in place, we can't have a network. The reason you can open YouTube on your phone and watch your favorite music videos is that a network has been established, which means there is a connection and there is an exchange of information between your phone, the router, the Internet Service Provider, and YouTube's server.

Why is networking important?

Networking is important because we are not meant to exist alone. As humans, we are naturally wired to connect and exchange information with one another. Computer networking is the digital extension of that instinct. It allows us to send emails, WhatsApp messages, and share files instantly and globally. Without the connection and exchange of data among devices and servers, it would be practically impossible to make video calls with your long-time friend in Canada or send that important email to your supervisor explaining why you need more time to complete the project. In short, computer networking is important because it makes global communication possible.
While it is great that you can communicate and share resources due to the power of networking, you must also understand how the network enables you to accomplish these tasks. Knowing networking basics helps you solve everyday issues like:

"Why is my Wi-Fi not working?"
"Why is my internet slow?" and so on.

Learning networking equips you with the knowledge to use, secure, and even build these systems that power your digital life. And in a world that runs on communication, that’s a skill worth having.

How to merge PDF files using the PyPDF2 module in python

Kojo Ben — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 01:07:56 +0000

Have you ever had multiple PDF files that you need to merge into one single document? It is easier than you might think to merge or combine two or more PDF's into one single file in python using the PyPDF2 module.

PyPDF2 is a python library used to work with PDF files. You can use it to extract document information, split document page by page, merge multiple pages, encrypt and decrypt, etc. In this tutorial, you will learn how to merge multiple files using this module.

A program to merge multiple PDF files

You first need to install the package using pip:
pip install PyPDF2

Open any editor of your choice and create a new file "pdfMerger.py". Make sure the PDF files to be appended are in the same directory as the python file.

The following block of code allows you to merge two or more PDF files:

import PyPDF2 

mergeFile = PyPDF2.PdfFileMerger()

mergeFile.append(PyPDF2.PdfFileReader('file1.pdf', 'rb'))

mergeFile.append(PyPDF2.PdfFileReader('file2.pdf', 'rb'))

mergeFile.write("NewMergedFile.pdf")

Line 1: Import the PdfFileReader class and PdfFileWriter class from the PyPDF2 module.

Line 2: Created an object of the PdfFileMerger class and assign it to mergeFile

Line 3 and 4: Used the append method to concatenate all pages onto the end of the file

Line 5: Writes all data that has been merged to NewMergedFile

The code block above looks very simple but what if you would like to merge more than two files? You would have to repeat line 3 for each file you want to add and this will make your program very long. You can use a for loop in this situation.
The following block of code is another way to merge mutliple PDF files

import PyPDF2 

def merge_pdfs(_pdfs):

    mergeFile = PyPDF2.PdfFileMerger()

    for _pdf in _pdfs:

        mergeFile.append(PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(_pdf, 'rb'))

    mergeFile.write("New_Merged_File.pdf")

if __name__ == '__main__':

    _pdfs = ['file1.pdf', 'file2.pdf', 'file3.pdf']

    merge_pdfs(_pdfs)

Line 2: Define a function merge_pdfs which takes a list _pdfs as a parameter.

Line 4: A for loop to loop through the list _pdfs and concatenate the pages.

Line 7: Check if the python file is the main module or it's been imported.

Line 8: Specify the list of files

Line 9: Call the function

I hope you enjoyed this short and simple tutorial! 😎

DEV Community: Kojo Ben

Networking - What it is and Why You Need to Know It?

What is Networking?

Why is networking important?

How to merge PDF files using the PyPDF2 module in python

A program to merge multiple PDF files